BunkBlog

Sarah Palin’s past continues to amuse and enlighten. From the 2006 Alaskan Gubernatorial Candidate Questionnaire:

Will you support funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex-education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?

Yes, the explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support.

Guess we know how well that turned out for her own family, eh?

And:

Are you offended by the phrase “Under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?

Not on your life. If it was good enough for the founding fathers, its good enough for me and I’ll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.

When the Pledge was written in 1892 (I’m betting the Founders were all dead by then), it said this:

“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands: one Nation indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.”

And it didn’t get the “Under God” until 1954. Not a lot of Founding Fathers hanging around by then, I’m guessing. They must have a fantastic history program in Alaskan schools.

In other news, there exists some relatively solid evidence that Palin was a member of the semi-seccessionist Alaskan Independence Party (motto: Alaska First — Alaska Always) prior to being elected mayor of Wasilla.

Oh, and just for fun, the pinheads at Faux News apparently believe that living within a few hundred miles of a foreign country counts as foreign policy experience.

By that reasoning, I’ve got vast amounts of foreign policy experience, having lived in Minnesota, Washington, California, and Texas! Not to mention my years living actually in a foreign land. I’m super-qualified to be VP!

You may remember Guin, the gender-confused cat, from previous posts such as the one about the really large cat bed:

He was also convinced he was a dog, evicting Banshee from the dog bed at times:

He loved to hang out with his best friend, Leo:

And he even got a little rough with the dogs at times, since he was the king of his demesne, he thought:

Sadly, Guin is gone.  We’re not sure what happened to him, but he seemed to have not suffered any trauma. He was happily shredding the couch just two days ago, but this morning he was on the back porch.  As far as we can tell, he came home around sunrise this morning. Leo was so confused, he was wagging his tail and waiting for Guin to swat him with his claws, as they would so frequently play.  Kat’s heartbroken, of course.

He’s been lain to rest under a flagstone, by a shrub he enjoyed staring at in the back yard. You were a good kitty, Guin.

In counterpoint to my skepticism surrounding Sarah Palin, check out the Obama campaign’s reaction:

“Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency,” Adrianne Marsh, a spokeswoman for Obama, said in a written statement.

That’s just petty and inaccurate.  She’s the former mayor of a town of 9,000 much as Obama is a former community organizer. Ignoring the present position is a slimy trick one usualy associates with devotees of Karl Rove.  Shame.

[T]he head of the marine mammals program for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and two other staff biologists agreed with the conclusions of nine polar bear studies that the federal government was citing to justify a threatened-species listing for the bears. The state’s in-house dispute seems to refute later statements by Gov. Sarah Palin that a “comprehensive review” of the federal science by state wildlife officials found no reason to support an endangered-species listing for the northern bears.

and…

What is your take on global warming and how is it affecting our country?

A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.

Newsmax.com – Palin Speaks to Newsmax About McCain, Abortion, Climate Change.

In my opinion, that says volumes.  Someone who doesn’t believe the people who actually study something, preferring to believe people with vested interests in the status quo…yeah, great choice there, Senator McCain.

She would be the hottest VP ever, just barely edging out Dan Quayle.

Oh, and she’s also a proponent of teaching “the controversy” (which exists only in the minds of deluded people) surrounding evolution:

Republican Sarah Palin said she thinks creationism should be taught alongside evolution in the state’s public classrooms.

Palin was answering a question from the moderator near the conclusion of Wednesday night’s televised debate on KAKM Channel 7 when she said, ‘Teach both. You know, don’t be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both.’

So, we had planned an October 14th date, with reception the following weekend.  That’s changed, for a few logistical reasons.  The new plan is October 31st JP ceremony, then we leave town for Galveston.  A day on the island, then our week cruising the Caribbean, then back home.  Reception is maybe the 16th of November.  Who’s coming?

I have discovered The Source for last year’s moron posts: Jerome Corsi. Although the first sources for each of the conspiracy theory bullshit stories seemed to come from somewhere else, Corsi filters all the nonsense down to one easy-to-swallow ball of crap.

• Abiotic petroleum, which would allow us to continue to burn all the oil we want, since it’s not a finite resource? Corsi.
• Merging the United States with Mexico and Canada, in some UN/EU-flavored paranoid delusion? Corsi.
• John Kerry, decorated war veteran, is a craven coward who hates the military? Corsi.

And, now, Corsi has a new book, reaching #1 on the NYTimes bestseller listing almost entirely due to right-wing groups buying thousands of copies to share with their conspiracy-loving hordes. What might this new book cover? How evil Barack Obama is. Corsi is able to list the following “facts” about Obama:

1. Obama may be currently using drugs.
2. Obama is a practicing Muslim.
3. Obama attended a Muslim madrassa school in Indonesia.
4. Dreams of My Father is not dedicated to Obama’s grandparents.
5. Dreams of My Father ignores the existence of Obama’s half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng.

And then there are actual facts that seem to not require much time to ascertain:

1. There’s no evidence whatsoever of current drug use.
2. How does he find the time, after spending so much time at the Trinity United Church of Christ?
3. The only overtly religious school young Barack attended in Indonesia was Catholic.
4. It is to my family, though — my mother, my grandparents, my siblings, stretched across oceans and continents — that I owe the deepest gratitude and to whom I dedicated this book.
5. Page 47.

The list is quite extensive beyond these low-hanging fruit. Why does anyone read this crap? A guy who believes George Bush wants to merge the country with Mexico is considered someone to listen to about anything factual?  Seriously?

Update: In case you think Corsi is a good guy just because he tends to bash Democrats, check out this article: Corsi writes for WoldNutDaily and claims that McCain’s (wife’s) fortune can be traced back to mobsters.  Nice guy, this Corsi.

In case anyone thinks the War on (some) Drugs is working or is in any way a boon to American peace and freedom, check out this story on the mayor of a DC-area town. The mayor and his mother-in-law were tied up, the family’s two dogs were just shot out-of-hand, and all this with not a single “no-knock” warrant issued. So, by the rules of the country we thought we lived in, the police should have knocked and asked the suspect to surrender so they could search the house.  Not even close to what happened.

Meanwhile, the entire thing is such an incredible cockup to begin with. The police say that it’s possible the mayor of the town was having 30 pounds of marijuana delivered to his door. Seriously. That’s not been ruled out, even though the police have arrested two other men who are implicated in a scheme to deliver marijuana to unsuspecting innocents, using the front porches of random strangers as drop points for passing drugs to other dealers. But the mayor may be a druggie. Right.

Meanwhile, Indianapolis has cops shaking down drug dealers for cash and drugs. Police in Atlanta are known to carry drugs in their patrol cars to plant on suspects, and shoot elderly women.

All of them, no doubt, acted responsibly.

My mother tells me that, even as a child, I was not too enthusiastic about having pets of any kind. Naturally, I’m living with an animal nut. I’m pretty sure this is closer to “irony” than anything Alanis Morissette ever sang.

Wednesday, the Nature Center where Kat works was to provide animals and a presentation for over a hundred Girl Scouts for their day camp. Somehow, I was drafted to assist. I ended up educating myself about Australian animals to enough degree to fake ten minutes of Q&A(1), and then handled a ferret for the evening. And, there was that incident with the snake…

1 – Did you know that, while Australia has many snakes, New Zealand (closest neighbor for the geographically-challenged) has no snakes at all? That’s the most interesting thing I can come up with. Sorry.

Dear coworkers who babble all too frequently near my desk: “nonplussed” actually does not mean the same as “unfazed” but um…the opposite.  Thank you, please drive through.

I’ve been working on military bases for pretty much my entire adult life.  In that time, I’ve been continually amazed and astonished at the utter inanity of the bureaucratic ninnies who are allowed to run much of the daily workings of the government.  For instance, we have a proxy server which blocks access to web sites deemed inappropriate.  Which sites are inappropriate and why remains a guessing game, as they have misconfigured the blasted thing to show a useless error message.  There are locations in the “Access Denied” template to display exactly what category of evil you were trying to access, as well as the usual boilerplate about Big Brother watching you and he’s gonna getcha.

Today, I discovered that RealClimate is blocked. Exactly how is a climatology site objectionable? Of course, the propaganda information sites they do allow are equally interesting. There has never been a day that drug abuser Rush Limbaugh or felon G Gordon Liddy has been blocked, to my knowledge. Comedian Al Franken’s Senate campaign site – blocked. Air America was blocked, then allowed, then blocked, and now it’s allowed again I believe. For the longest time, Little Green Footballs was allowed, while DailyKos was blocked. Now, they’re both blocked.  I can get behind that – neither of those sites is official use, I’d wager. Drudge Report and WorldNutDaily – always accessible.  Slate’s Video News – blocked. Go figure.

Seriously, RealClimate? Frack.

First, thanks to all who wished me happy birthday this past Saturday.  I appreciate it.

The lovely Kat put together an unusual method of gift-giving – a scavenger hunt. I wandered around the nature center, following her rhyming clues, hoping not to be told to put my hand in the viper cage. It was a very cool haul of presents, including a few pans to be used for various stir fry and baking needs, as well as a few books I’ve been looking at. Of course, the cocktail shaker got a good workout this weekend, making a few batches of raspberry margaritas to accompany the Serrano ham-wrapped figs.

Sunday morning we hit the lake, after applying what appears in retrospect to be insufficient amounts of sunscreen. Kayaking across 3 miles of placid water, watching for critters, and watching The Boy splash around in the water – good times.  The eventual “seen animal” list included a bevy of turtles, a flock of birds, a swarm of dragonflies, a school of jumping fish (none near the fishermen, though), and a couple water snakes. The first snake was a cottonmouth (aka water mocassin), which was swimming away from the crazy humans at a good clip. It must have been at least 4 feet long. The second slithery critter was a diamond-backed water snake of much smaller size.  It popped up and then slipped beneath the surface, never to be seen again.

We also discovered that paddling a tube is not very efficient (no bow or stern, so you tend to paddle clockwise and counter-clockwise rather than forward).  Well, The Boy discovered this, after much instruction on the proper angle of attack for the paddle.  Then, we discovered that The Boy likes to paddle the kayak.  Come back here, you little monkey!

Overall, a great birthday and good weekend. Now, if my coworkers would just stop saying, “Got some sun this weekend, eh?”  SO original.

Hey, if anyone with a Livejournal account is reading me here, and not at LJ, maybe you should check out the LJ once in a while too (while logged in to LJ, duh).  I post the rare friends-only post over there, cuz I don’t want to make people register on my personal site too.

The oil industry in the USA isn’t using most of the oil fields they have leases for, but they’re begging for more? I don’t understand.  The USA uses 21 million barrels of oil per day, and produces 8; the oil fields they have access to which they are not using could be worth 5 million barrels a day. Meanwhile, the proposals to open up more offshore drilling, combined with the proposals to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, could lead to 2 million barrels a day. So, they’re begging for the ability to get half of what they already have available which they aren’t using. I honestly don’t understand economics, but that just doesn’t sound kosher to me.

I understand the investment to exploit the open fields would be substantial, and the leases they are asking for would be cheaper to exploit. But, still – makes you wonder about the rhetoric about who is patriotic, eh?

Ever since listening to the fantastic FM & AM album during my broadcast journalism class back in 1982, I’ve been a huge fan of George Carlin.  Son of WINO was a great piece of absurdist humor (weather report tonight is dark, with scattered light toward morning), his counterculture cred got a bit of unneeded burnishing with his appearance in the Bill & Ted movies (far outshining the acting ability of the stars), and his social commentary was always biting and spot-on.

I’m amazed at his consistently funny career, his ability to come up with topical humor for fifty years, and his almost unnatural capacity to seem to be a young smartass well into his AARP years. His passing will leave a giant hole in the world of satire and humor, and he will be missed by anyone with a funnybone.

Kat’s kayak arrived via big truck last week, and then sat on the love seat for two days due to lack of time. Here it is.

When Kat arrived home Friday afternoon, she chanted “It’s kayak time” repeatedly until I changed into swim trunks and slathered on some sun screen. I took my inflatable kayak, which is (in contrast) a big pig of an overgrown pool toy.  But, still got us around the lake for a couple hours, during which we saw critters. There were many turtles poking just above the surface, a nutria putting on a diving show for us, a swan, and a water snake. Maybe that water snake, who knows?

The only problem with taking the kayak out, other than sunburn? The cat no longer has a giant bed.

Kat is working as a naturalist at the local nature center, and gets to spend much time with the critters. She’s owned snakes and lizards and all manner of furry, finned, and scaled critters over the years. She minored in biology. She’s not generally squeamish.

Saturday, I’m finally getting the 2007 DVDs ready to ship to far-flung relatives, when I get a call. “There’s an emergency, I can’t get in touch with [Snake Guy] (her boss at the nature center), and I need you to come out here.”  So, I hit the road for the lake, pop in and she’s standing in the middle of the main room, with the door to the reptile room blocked, while she madly dials anyone who can help with the unidentified snake in the room. Last seen heading for a dark corner, the reptile has decided to enliven the morning and cancel a child’s birthday party.

After a couple hours of searching, a snake wrangler in flip flops (!) pulling apart the reptile room, and general panic trying to identify which snakes might be missing (without going into the “venomous” room if avoidable), the little bugger finally decides to reveal himself. It turns out to be a fairly dehydrated water snake. One of the enclosures appeared to be missing a water snake, except that snake died three weeks ago. This one is the same species, albeit much younger and smaller. He broke into the nature center. While we’re trying to figure out which snake had escaped, it turns out this one was a burglar. What are the odds?

Ron Moore, you sonofabitch. You evil, twisted, sick muthafracker.

Anyone who has read anything of the British crypto effort during WW2, especially regarding the Enigma machine, should be familiar with the name Bletchley Park.  It was the home of the UK equivalent to our NSA, and also housed Alan Turing during the war.  You’d think preserving such an important location would be completely uncontroversial.  Apparently everyone agrees that the site is a wonderful historical locale and its museum of computing is also a great resource.  But, they’re not too willing to pay for it.

The curator says they may be able to keep running for two more years, unless some generous folks step up.  That would be a shame.

Oh, and if you’re not a crypto geek, at least read Between Silk and Cyanide – it’s a fantastic read and a very interesting look at the difficulties of covert agents and how they tie in with the crypto geek culture as well.  Crypto geeks have all read Cryptonomicon, so I won’t bother to link to that one.  🙂

Yeah, Weezer is totally the band of geeks everywhere.

Congratulations to Stacy and John, who are tying the knot as I write this. You guys held out until you found the perfect couple, I’m sure it’s a great day for you both.

Now, about the photos…